I ran toward the entrance. Only a few feet to go. Out of the lobby and across the walk into the car. Only a few feet and-and I couldn't make them. I couldn't go back and I couldn't go forward. Someone had stepped into the entrance.
A blue-uniformed cop.
22
He had been looking at something down the street as he stepped into the entrance, and his head was still turned now. I stopped dead in my tracks, paralyzed for the moment with shock and fear. Then, as his head started to turn toward me, I acted. I did the only thing there was to do.
I ran forward and hurled the body at him.
It struck him high in the chest, obstructing his vision-I hoped-and bowling him over backwards. He yelled and grappled with it blindly, and I darted around to one side and sprang for the car.
I brought my foot down on the accelerator, grabbing at the doors. They banged shut and the motor stuttered and roared and the car leaped ahead.
As I shot past the entrance, I caught a confused picture of two figures rolling on the sidewalk and another running toward them from the lobby. Then, I was out of that block and in the middle of the next one, nearing the second intersection, and the speed indicator read seventy miles an hour.
Somehow I got control of myself. I brought my foot down on the brake, and the car skidded perilously. I eased up on it for a split second, then brought it down again. At something near the legal speed limit, I swept through the intersection.
Fortunately, there were no traffic lights this far down and very little traffic. At least it was fortunate at that particular moment. In the long run, I knew, safety would lie where the traffic was thickest. I rolled on, slower and slower, breathing heavily, nervous sweat rolling down into my eyes.
I turned left at the next corner, entering an arterial street which led through the center of the downtown district. Not until then did I hear, far to the rear of me, the shrill clatter of a police whistle.
Moving automatically with the traffic, I drove through town. I was safe, but for how long? And who could I turn to for help, if I needed it-if that cop had spotted my license plates or if the elevator operator could describe me?
Wrapped in thought, driving blindly, I came out on the other side of the business district. I passed an apartment house, and suddenly I thought of Hardesty. He lived in this neighborhood, and he wanted something from me. The man who wants something is a good man to drive a trade with.
I found his address, an apartment hotel near the park, and parked my car across the street from it. The lobby clerk was working the switchboard, his back to me. I got into the automatic elevator, punched a button and rode up.
Hardesty came to the door in a dressing gown. He started to smile when he saw me. Then his eyes widened, and the smile faded into a startled frown. And he grabbed my shoulder abruptly and jerked me inside.
"Why the hell did you come here?" he snarled, slamming the door. "Haven't you got sense enough to-" Breaking off with an angry curse, he strode across the room to a large radio and flicked the switch.
It burst into raucous sound, and cursing again, he turned down the volume. "Listen," he said, curtly.
I listened.
"… additional information on the man who, a few minutes ago, beat an elevator operator in the Haddon Building unconscious, murdered a tenant of the building and escaped after slugging a police officer with the dead man's body.
"The murderer is about six feet four inches tall and has red hair. His complexion is swarthy; he is well-dressed; he is believed to be driving a late-model coupe with an out of state license. The elevator operator believes him to be the same man he saw loitering around the building earlier in the evening. No motive is yet apparent for…"
The radio switch clicked.
Hardesty looked at me, grinning; smiling in affable apology.
"Sorry, Pat," he said. "I was listening to that when you knocked, and I thought-well, that red hair and all…"
His voice trailed off, and he frowned again.
"Oh," he said, softly. "So it was you."
"I'm the man they're looking for," I nodded. "But I didn't kill anyone. I found the body. I was afraid the murder might be pinned on me so I tried to get it out of the building."
I gave him a brief account of what happened. He listened absently, with only a pretense of interest, but his face cleared.
"Well," he shrugged, "they seemed to have you tabbed wrong, anyway, even to the license on your car. The only thing they've got right is your hair and they can't haul in every red-haired man in town."
"They can haul in all those who have criminal records," I said. "And that elevator operator could identify me if he saw me again."
"I doubt it." He shook his head. "And how are the police going to know that the murderer had a criminal record? No, just sit tight for a few days, keep out of that neighborhood, and you'll be all right. Three or four days from now that elevator jockey wouldn't know you, even if you did have the bad luck to run into him."
"I hope you're right," I said.
"I'm sure of it, Pat. I know how those things go. It would have been better of course if you'd just walked out after you discovered the body. But that can't be helped now. Sit down and have a drink. I think you could use one.
"Now," he said, when he had poured two stiff drinks, "I wonder if there isn't something else you should tell me, Pat."
"For instance?" I tossed down my drink and poured another one.
"For instance, how you happened to be in this detective's office."
"I had an appointment with him," I said.
"I supposed you had."
"He was going to tell me what this was all about, why I was paroled from Sandstone."
"I see." He sat with his arms on his knees, bent forward a little, the glass cupped in his hands. There was a faint smile on his lips. "He was going to tell you something. He got killed. What conclusion would you draw from that?"
"You mean I shouldn't be curious?"
"That's exactly what I mean, Pat. I-"
"I think you're wrong," I said. "I think I should be a damned sight more curious than I have been. The murder is proof that I'm playing blind in a game where a life means nothing. Before tonight I was just worried. Now I know that I've got to find out what's going on."
"Oh?" he said, softly. "How do you propose to go about that, Pat?"
"I've already got an opening wedge. Mrs. Luther had an appointment ahead of me tonight. I think it's safe to assume that what Eggleston knew was about her."
"Mmm," he took a sip of the whiskey. "Go on."
"But she didn't keep that appointment. She told someone else about it and whoever that was came and killed Eggleston. In other words, her escort wasn't just important to her. In fact"-I hesitated, "it wasn't as important to her as it was to others, the murderer, for example."
"How," he said, "do you figure that?"
"Because she didn't handle it herself. It wouldn't have meant enough to her to commit murder, and murder had to be done. Therefore she wasn't allowed to keep the appointment."